Are "Professors Behaving Badly"?

Yeah, it's definitely true that most colleges have a liberal atmosphere. I think there's a lot of room for diversification in political beliefs, especially among Ivy leagues, but I also think this shouldn't be the foremost reason why new professors are hired.

The primary factor here is respect. Whether the professors in this article were "behaving badly" or not, they acted unprofessionally and impulsively with their comments, all of which could be seen as extremely offensive by certain groups. For example, even if you're a Democrat and hate that Texas is a mainly Republican state, saying it was "karma" that Hurricane Harvey struck Texas is entirely disrespecting the lives lost in this tragedy, regardless of which side of the political spectrum you're on. Personally, I wouldn't want to take a class from a professor who thinks like that, even though I might agree with them about last year's election. It seems like it'd be hard to teach politics without a slight bias toward your own views, but I see no problem with voicing your opinion as long as it doesn't discriminate against others.

I don't think, especially in this era, especially in this country, you can go around and tell people not to talk about politics, since it gets pretty hypocritical at a point, especially when you're talking about these extremely well educated professionals. I also think there's a big difference between saying something in the classroom and saying something on your own time. If the president of the United States gets to deny rape allegations and attack the FBI on twitter, I think the american people should be allowed to say what they want too. That being said, there is something to be said for respect, or at least good PR.

I don't have a problem with colleges being liberal (although I'm progressive so take that with a grain of salt) since any place that exposes you to a bunch of different kinds of people (and allows you to hopefully befriend some of them) will probably have you coming out of it both (slightly) more sympathetic towards others as well as (ideally) more capable of understanding the kind of propaganda that both parties use (it's why I think a lot of campuses are further left than the vast majority of the DNC, or at least its most public part). My problem is with the disrespect that anyone would have. Like in the case of the Las Vegas shooting where people were acting as if because the concertgoers were listening to country music they naturally must be pro-gun and therefore somehow deserved this, when in reality I hate guns and if you turn on Jolene I'll sing along. In the fallout of such a tragedy, it's not that you shouldn't necessarily politicize it (if a burning building kills people inside because our fire codes suck, they need to be improved) but you shouldn't be a dick about it.

Furthermore it's a matter or PR, in that purely from an understanding how the public reacts to things, you should know that what you're saying is edgy and you need to be ready to back it up. When you call for the president to be killed, you better have a rock solid, airtight laundry list of reasons for why you believe that. In the case of the guy who talked about teaching future dead cops, he shouldn't have said that in the first place, but if for some reason he thought about that long and hard and decided he was gonna say it anyways, he should at least back it up. Give examples that support your argument that these people are not dedicated to their studies and that they are leaning towards that profession and that they have displayed a type of attitude that is likely to get them killed in the line of duty. Don't just say something dumb and not expect any backlash.

I understand that that position might be overly harsh, but I like to think of it like this. If someone calls your mother a bitch, and you punch that person, most people might not necessarily approve, but they can certainly understand why. A lot of people, both in and out of academia, are doing a lot of punching and very little explaining, and the explaining that is happening is often half-assed and based in heavy biases.

I don't want professors acting like this, mainly because I think in a lot of cases it should be beneath them, but if you have to act like this, try and at least have some self awareness and be willing to accept the consequences that come from posting a dumb argument that you can't support or get other people to at least understand.